Thursday, June 9, 2011

In which I find out that I'm the rudest person in China and fret about finals.

I yesterday when I went grocery shopping I was a little bit under budget so I decided to pick up a cook book and an art magazine.  The cookbook is useless to me until I learn a little more kitchen Chinese however I can look at the pictures and pick out foods in the instructions and just kind of invent what I think is going on.  Last night I made garlic ginger and chicken stir fry (with peppers because dangit, I love everything spicy).  Then I sliced some french bread and put a little vinegar on each slice, put a thin slice of brie cheese on top of that and scooped the stir fry (which I had chopped veeeery finely) onto the bread.  A little cilantro topped it off and hot DAMN was that a good meal!  Like... seriously, I wish I didn't use the last of the ginger because I really want to make that again tonight.

The art magazine looked pretty cool.  On the front cover there's some video-game looking chick with lightning and birds in the background and on the back there's a guy who is half normal-looking and half scary clown.  Anyways, the art looked awesome and I picked it up because I wanted to try drawing a few things.  Little did I know that it wasn't an art magazine at all but a horror magazine.  People send in their best horror fiction to get published and there's little to no art.  However there IS a list of the 10 best video games in the middle and I'm thinking that this is exactly the kind of magazine that I would LOVE to subscribe to.... except that I can't read a word of it.  Guess it means I really need to work on my written Chinese.

So why is mild-mannered Kirky the rudest person in China?  Turns out that you're supposed to refuse something two times before finally agreeing to it.  So I'll make some cookies or whatever and say, "hey, you wanna try this?"  "No."  "You sure?"  "No thanks."  And I drop the issue at try #2, never giving them a chance to say yes.  Conversely, whenever someone says, "Hey you want some?"  I'll say yes at #1.  So... I'm super rude.  :(

For the past two weeks I have taught music to my students.  I had them write a short paper about their favorite song and brought in my iPod with some cheap-o speakers to play what I've got.  We talked about different genres, different artists... it was really fun!  Except I'm not quite sure that the students get the idea of classic rock in the west.  So far I have been told that Eagles are country (which is a rookie mistake, but they were talking specifically about the song 'Hotel California' so I know it's really rock.  If it was 'Desperado' or something like that, I'd let it slide), Def Leppard is "The epitome of American pop music" and Ozzy Osbourne's 'Crazy Train' is country.  Actually, that last one got me into the most polite argument ever.  "I'm not sure if it's country.  I think it might be rock."  "I'm not sure you have heard Ozzy if you think he's rock.  He's very country!"  "I'M NOT SURE YOU'LL PASS MY CLASS."  (Okay, so that last one didn't happen.)

I did end up playing 'Crazy Train' for the class and telling them to decide.  The consensus was that Ozzy is pop music.  *headdesk*

Now I need to prepare the final presentations for the class and get everything graded but the school told me that my class ends two weeks earlier than I was originally told.  So now I get to do the end-of-year scramble.  Woohoo!

Beiling Park: looks traditional and formal on the outside but those walls are hiding all the hackey sackers and cotton candy vendors.

Dragon Boat Festival was last Monday and boy was that a blast!  My students took me to Beiling Park, which is where the tomb of the first emperor of China is.  We didn't get to see the tomb, though.  It's 6 yuan to get into the park and then once you're inside you need to pay another 30 yuan to see the tomb.  Darn money-making schemes!

However we did explore the park and see things like the Couple Tree- a tree that brings good luck to couples who come and confess their love in front of it.

You're getting a side view because I am too lazy to go back and flip the pic.

I accidentally made another terrible faux-pas when we were walking back from here.  My student told me that some people wanted to be buried here because it would bring luck to their descendants.  So their kids would wait until night and then some to the park and bury them near the path.  They would mark where they buried them with a bunch of plastic flowers.  I saw some flowers so I pointed them out and said, "Oh, like over there?"  Before I finished she SLAPPED my hand away.  Like... my hand stung for a good five minutes. "Don't point at them!"  She said before walking a little faster.

Why the heck don't they teach these things to us in Chinese class?  I would have LOVED to know how to be polite to other people and what sort of things to not do before I came here.  I would also have liked a little heads up at how white people are treated here.  This old woman came up to me on the street and stared at me for a while... then she reached up like she was going to touch my eyes.  So naturally I book it.  The girl I was with later said that she only didn't understand how I could see how of my eyes because they were blue.  My first thought was, "What, so touching someone else's EYEBALL is going to give you that answer?"

Also, some guys really wanted to take pictures with me.  We got stopped outside Beiling Park and they ask and I look at my two students and say, "Are they going to kidnap me or something?  Is this weird?"  One girl told me, "No, it's not weird, I ask foreigners to take pictures with me all the time."

Oh well, future training for fighting off the paparazzi, right?  Right now it's about 7am and I've got to crack open a read bull and take another crack at correcting papers.  I have another 400 to go through (why do I do this to myself?) and I feel like I will never be finished!